Doctors who serve Medicare patients are facing a 27.4 percent cut in payments beginning Jan. 1 unless Congress acts to create a "patch" to the 1990s-era calculation for determining the value of medical services.
The perennial "doctor fix" is the latest casualty of the Super Committee's inability to come to a deal on deficit reduction. Without the temporary boost in payments Medicare sets for medical professionals to take care of seniors and the disabled, doctors warn that millions could see their health care choices limited.

Doctors who serve Medicare patients are facing a 27.4 percent cut in payments beginning Jan. 1 unless Congress acts to create a "patch" to the 1990s-era calculation for determining the value of medical services.
The perennial "doctor fix" is the latest casualty of the Super Committee's inability to come to a deal on deficit reduction. Without the temporary boost in payments Medicare sets for medical professionals to take care of seniors and the disabled, doctors warn that millions could see their health care choices limited.

In 1997, the Republican Congress created a payment formula meant to govern Medicare called the Sustainable Growth Rate. The formula was supposed to be a little tweak that saved a couple billion dollars. But the formula was wrong, and it quickly proved a wrenching readjustment that would've driven physicians out of the program by sharply slashing their payments. But rather than undo it, Republicans in Congress, and then Democrats when they took over Congress, passed temporary fixes, because no one wanted to come up with the money to fix the thing permanently.

Doctors who serve Medicare patients are facing a 27.4 percent cut in payments beginning Jan. 1 unless Congress acts to create a "patch" to the 1990s-era calculation for determining the value of medical services.
The perennial "doctor fix" is the latest casualty of the Super Committee's inability to come to a deal on deficit reduction. Without the temporary boost in payments Medicare sets for medical professionals to take care of seniors and the disabled, doctors warn that millions could see their health care choices limited.

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